Being an author is hard. There's no way around it. Some days, the prose will spring onto the page almost without effort. On others, it will be an exercise in stagnation and frustration as you stare at a blank screen in a fit of writer's doubt. Oh, and the actual writing often isn't the hard part. Authors and writers often work from a deeply personal place. And, if opening up to a new friend is anxiety-inducing, sharing your writing with the entire world takes it to a new level.
Links of the week April 15 2019 (16)
Our new feature links to interesting blogs or articles posted online, which will help keep you up to date with what's going on in the book world:
22 April 2019
Think running a business is hard? Imagine if the business was based around your imagination being shared with others. This is what an author deals with on a daily basis. Thankfully, there are upsides to bring an author. Sharing your creativity can be the most rewarding thing in your life. It's a chance few will take, but those who do can see great rewards.
Here are a few common issues that authors face, and suggestions on how to overcome them, or put them in perspective.
I am a realist, not prone to outlandish dreams, and thus, rarely disappointed. Before The Joy Luck Club was published in March 1989, I told my husband that my novel would be on bookstore shelves for about six weeks and then disappear into the shredder. I had heard this was the case with most first novels, and there was no reason to expect mine would fare any better. In fact, it might do worse.
After all, these were quirky stories, written by an unknown Chinese American author. And in those days, books that were non-mainstream were termed "ethnic," enjoyed by special readers, largely those who were in ethnic studies programs. The characters are mothers who immigrated from China and their modern thirty-something American-born daughters. Their relationships are fraught with years of misunderstandings and accumulated pain. A mother's hopes and expectations become a daughter's sense of failure. A mother's advice is received by a daughter as rejection of who she really is. The mother, in return, feels her daughter knows nothing about her and has learned nothing from her mother, the one who loved her best.
Who would pay to read that? Over the last 30 years, I continue to be grateful and amazed by the answer: many.
Almost anyone who has spent time in the query trenches knows how challenging it is to capture the attention of a literary agent. Most agents, even new agents eager to build their client list, pass on over 90 percent of the queries they receive. In some cases, the reason is obvious: The agent doesn't represent the writer's genre; the writer has written a synopsis rather than a query letter; the agent isn't accepting queries, at all.
In other cases, the writer might be doing everything right-researching agents, following submission guidelines, querying only once they have a polished manuscript-but still experience radio silence. Or, maybe they are receiving requests for pages, or feedback from the agent along with the opportunity to resubmit, but an offer of representation just isn't coming through. If the writing is good or at least shows potential- how else would they have come this far?-shouldn't this be enough to land an agent? Does the writer's professionalism count for something? I asked literary agents Linda Camacho and Jennifer March Soloway.
We've all been there. We send a piece of ourselves out into the world and then wait to see what happens. And we try not to take it personally. But unless you've written a manual about the proper application of an electronic device, there's a part of you in your work and you want to see it do well. It's the literary equivalent of writing a note that says, "Do you like me? Circle Y or N," and then getting it back with "N" circled, assuming you get it back at all. Ghosting is alive and well in the submissions process, and sometimes it's even preferable. When you receive an extremely late rejection-so late that it falls into the Rip Van Winkle category-it feels like a slap in the face.
This has happened to me more than once. A very long time ago-so long ago, in fact, that I can no longer find the documentation and have to go by memory-I submitted a 10-minute play, of all things, to a program on a Canadian radio station. Multiple years passed. I can't remember how many exactly, but I'm very confident it was in the three-year range. Life moved on. I was no longer at the same place in my life. So, I was very surprised to see a letter arrive from a very conscientious employee informing me that he didn't know how my play had ended up on his desk-nor could he imagine the circuitous route that had delivered it to him-but he was going to have to pass. I don't even know if the program was still on the air.
You've written your book, hired editors, produced print and e-book editions, planned a marketing campaign, and are ready for launch -- but have you considered the little things - like your author photo?
A professional-quality author photo is crucial for self-publishers, and every indie author should include a photograph - ideally one taken by a professional - on her book jacket and in her marketing materials. At a time when many consumers hear about books online, having an author photo allows a writer to put a human face to her book.
The Academy of American PoetsA poetry book club founded in 1934 to support American poets and foster an appreciation of poetry. www.poets.org/ has announced the recipients of its inaugural Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowships. The fellowships will award 13 poets who serve as poets laureate of states, cities, and counties across the U.S. with a combined $1,050,000 in "recognition of their literary merit and to support civic programs, which will take place over the next twelve months."
"Poets make immeasurable contributions. Their poems spark conversation and can help us learn about one another's lives and unique experiences, which promotes greater understanding," Jennifer Benka, executive director of the Academy of American PoetsThe website of the wonderful Academy, which was founded in 1934 to support American poets at all stages of their careers and to foster the appreciation of contemporary poetry. Any poet or poetry lover would find it worth a visit., said in a statement. "We're honored to help underwrite these talented poets who are leaders in their communities and who have been working on public projects for years with little or no support."
15 April 2019
Netflix has been on a book acquisition spree over the past year, developing screen adaptations of dozens of novels, series, short story collections, and graphic novels. About 50 of these literary properties are being turned into series projects, while the screening service has announced plans to adapt only a handful into features-a list that includes Button Man by John Wagner, I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid, Pashmina by Nidhi Chanani, and The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry.
Netflix has 139 million subscribers, and these properties will provide the streaming giant with features, series, and animated shows for the coming years. "There's just no other substitute for the amount of work and creativity that goes into a book," said Matt Thunell, v-p of original series at Netflix.
Many of Netflix's deals begin with Maria Campbell Literary Associates. In 2017, Netflix exclusively retained that agency for its book-scouting efforts to find English- and foreign-language titles to adapt from around the world, including from the U.S. "I'm on the phone with them every week, talking about what's going on in New York, what's new, and about library properties as well," Thunell said. In addition, Netflix executives now attend such international literary rights events as the London Book Fair and the Frankfurt Book FairWorld's largest trade fair for books; held annually mid-October at Frankfurt Trade Fair, Germany; First three days exclusively for trade visitors; general public can attend last two..
This week, Ian McEwan said his new AI novel was not science fiction - and the world went mad. Sarah Ditum looks at why the genre retains its outsider status
Ian McEwan's latest novel, Machines Like Me, is a fiction about science - specifically, artificial intelligence. It is set in an alternative reality where Alan Turing does not kill himself but invents the internet instead; where JFK is never assassinated and Margaret Thatcher's premiership ends with the beginning of the Falklands war. The near future of the real world becomes the present of the novel, giving McEwan the space to explore prescient what-ifs: what if a robot could think like a human, or human intelligence could not tell the difference between itself and AI?
On the face of it, it is as absurd for McEwan to claim he's not writing sci-fi as it is for him to imply that sci-fi is incapable of approaching these themes interestingly: alternative history and non-human consciousness are established sci-fi motifs, thoroughly explored in defining genre works such as Philip K Dick's The Man in the High Castle and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? But genre is as much about what you keep out as what you let in, and science fiction - as well as being a label in its own right, suggestive of a certain tone and content - functions as a kind of insalubrious "other" against which literary authors can demonstrate their superiority.
Authors are being told to write under pseudonyms to present themselves as debut writers and feed the publishing industry's "obsession" with new, marketable voices, Joanne Harris has said.
In a lengthy Twitter thread, Harris, whose latest book The Strawberry Thief (Orion) was published this month, said the hunger for new authors meant some publishers were no longer spending enough time building enduring relationships with their existing list. Instead they focused on debuts, which were seen as more marketable and likelier to get literary prizes.
She wrote: "There's evidence of increasing numbers of experienced authors (most of them women) being advised to write under a different name, so that their publisher can present them as debut authors. And there are a number of recent cases of publishers taking on authors previously published elsewhere and presenting them as debut novelists."
Taking on a pseudonym is often seen as a common way for a writer to change genres without confusing their usual readers. But many book trade insiders contacted by The Bookseller agreed it was also a common tactic to revive a writer's career, hide disappointing previous sales or cash-in on the hunger for debuts - though publishers insisted their mid-list authors were supported too. One agent who preferred to speak anonymously said: "Publishers are businesses and it makes more sense to them to pump money into a new talent, with all the marketing opportunities that presents, than it does supporting a writer on their fourth book with declining sales. It's a shame but that's the reality. And, yes, pseudonyms are very popular to try to bypass this issue."
The final season of Game of Thrones premieres Sunday, but fans of the show and novels are still wondering when George R.R. Martin will finally release the series' sixth book, The Winds of Winter. The answer? Even if the notoriously slow-paced scribe is already done with his manuscript, it will still be quite some time before readers can get their hands on it.
Unfortunately for devoted readers of the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, the reality is that the book publishing world isn't built to accommodate the equivalent of a surprise album drop or Netflix documentary about Beyoncé. And even though it's been eight years since Martin released A Dance with Dragons, there's no real reason for his publisher to hurry up.
The only real urgency lies with the fans. Book purists fret about the 70-year-old Martin dying before finishing his story ("I find that question pretty offensive, frankly, when people start speculating about my death and my health, so fuck you to those people," the author said in 2014). But Martin has also started feeling the pressure, recently telling Entertainment Weekly, "I better live a long time because I have a lot of work left to do."
I've a very structured and disciplined writing routine where I begin a novel in January, I write four days a week from 9 to 6, my book is due May 31st, I edit during the summer, and I publish in the fall. As I write a novel a year this has been my discipline and though it may sound restrictive and non-creative, it feels the exact opposite. I feel very free, and focused, during the hours I have to create. I write longhand, and then when 6pm rings, I'm ready to leave the adventure in my head and face life.
How do you tackle writers block?
I've realized that writer's block hits me when I don't know how to reach a point that I can envisage in the future of the book. I just don't know how to get there. My cure-and I touch wood as I write this-has been to stop trying to fill the gap, and get straight to writing the bit that I know.
The traditional advice for aspiring novelists is to write about what you know. For most of my career I've done pretty much the opposite. I make my living writing novels about a forensic anthropologist - someone who can glean information from decomposition and the bones of the dead - despite the fact that I'm not an expert myself. My own scientific career came to a premature end when I failed A level biology and chemistry, forcing a hurried switch to English literature instead of the biochemistry degree I'd planned.
Of course, not all the research makes it into a novel. I write fiction, not text books, so the last thing I want to do is swamp readers with details, authentic or not. But I never discard anything, having found that it may well come in useful further down the line. And even if not, I've still learned a little more about our physical world than I knew before. Such as the fact that, at certain times, a decaying corpse can smell like freshly cut grass, or that decomposition produces a substance also used in the manufacture of perfumes. Which actually did make it into the latest book.
I'm still very much in the apprentice stage of writing. I read somewhere that you need to write a million words before you know what you're doing - so I'm headed that way, but I'm nowhere near there. But, for what they're worth, here are some of the things I've learned along the way.
Kill the dream sequence. My husband, who's my first reader and who has a demon eye for sloppiness, says that a dream sequence is almost invariably either a repeat of something tha's already been done within the action, or a lazy way of doing something that should be done within the action. I think he's let me get away with one dream in four books. At this point I just save us both time and kill them before he gets to them. You may well need to write the dream sequence, to help you towards an understanding of something in the book, but it's very unlikely that anyone needs to read it.
Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) - Amazon's e-book publishing platform offers a royalty rate of 70% of list price minus delivery costs, with a few exceptions. One of the chief advantages of working with Amazon is the incentives it offers to authors through its KDP Select program. Authors who offer their books exclusively through KDP can have them included in the Kindle Owners' Lending Library (earning money every time their book is borrowed), and get access to promotional tools such as free copies for readers during specific periods. The disadvantage of this is that the author is limiting his or her discoverability by only offering the book through one platform.
Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) - Amazon's e-book publishing platform offers a royalty rate of 70% of list price minus delivery costs, with a few exceptions. One of the chief advantages of working with Amazon is the incentives it offers to authors through its KDP Select program. Authors who offer their books exclusively through KDP can have them included in the Kindle Owners' Lending Library (earning money every time their book is borrowed), and get access to promotional tools such as free copies for readers during specific periods. The disadvantage of this is that the author is limiting his or her discoverability by only offering the book through one platform.